Joe
"Little Joe" Monahan (1850–1904), born Johanna Monahan, was an American
businessman who worked in various prospecting and cattle industries around
Silver City, Idaho, under an assumed masculine name and identity. The
revelation of Joe's sex became a sensationalized national news story after his
death in 1904.[1]
His life was the subject of the 1993 film The Ballad of Little Jo.

Monahan is believed to have been born as Johanna Monahan in Buffalo, New
York, in 1850, and to have moved to Idaho in 1867.[1]
Raised in a foster home from the age of eight, Monahan left for the West at 14
years old. Because his identity was obscured until his death in 1904, the
circumstances of his birth are unclear, and census records suggest he may have
been born as Mary Manumon, though the family also had a young servant girl,
Johanna Burke. Accounts to journalists after his death claimed that Monahan's
mother dressed the young child in boy's clothing in early childhood to sell
newspapers on the street.[2]:99

Monahan had spent his early years in Idaho as a cowboy, and briefly lived
in Oregon before returning to Owyhee County, where an 1898 census listed him
as a cattle rancher.[3]
Monahan was said to have worked in the livery business, then a sawmill, and
later saved several thousand dollars in mining, which were stolen in an
investment fraud. Monahan voted in an 1880 Republican primary despite women
being denied the vote at the time.[2]:97

Monahan lived on Succor Creek, near Silver City, in a small home with dirt
floors, raising pigs and chickens.[4]
He is listed in three Idaho census inquiries. All identified Monahan as a
male, with one marked with an asterisk with the remark "doubtful sex." Locals
remarked that they were aware that Monahan was female, but Monahan never
confirmed it when questioned, and the issue was rarely raised. In a letter to
the Buffalo police chief seeking next of kin, a local resident remarked that,
"He had fought his way through with many of us ... suffered hardship and
hunger in early days and never whimpered ... the cowboys treated him with the
greatest respect, and he was always welcome to eat and sleep at their camps."[1]:99

Monahan fell ill in 1903 after a winter cattle drive on the Boise River and
died in 1904.[4]
At this point, townspeople discovered his sex, which was widely reported in
the media of the day including an exposé in the American Journal Examiner.[2]:96[4]

Monahan's story became a popular story in Western magazines starting in the
1950s. Barbara Lebow wrote a play, Little Joe Monaghan, in 1981. In
1993, a movie, The Ballad of Little Jo, was loosely based on Monahan's
life story.[2]:102